APM bug slows latest, greatest ThinkPad to a crawl

Everything slows to a crawl

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The IBM ThinkPad A20P, which received rave reviews all over the place when it was launched earlier this year, has found itself between the rock of Big Blue and the hard place of ATI.

Numerous users leaving numberless messages on IBM's support boards and on other public forums, are complaining that D3D/Open GL speed slows to a near standstill when Advanced Power Management (APM) is enabled.

APM is supposed to give a notebook that extra bit of battery time for most x86 based notebooks.

One user, who has copied his complaint to CEO Lou 'Boots' Gerstner, said: "Using ACPI instead of APM only produces problems with hibernate, function keys, LCD off, etcetera. There are too many problems to mention, actually."

He added this happened under Win9X and complained that the software he uses runs sub-optimally or not at all using Windows 2000.

"Upgrading to Windows 2000 is not an option for me, and for many others," he said.

Complains by A20P users in newsgroups have not produced a a resolution to the problem. ATI, which makes the OEM video chipset for this particular ThinkPad, has said it is not their problem. Big Blue has said the same thing.

One user said: "As far as I am concerned, IBM is to blame as I bought the laptop from IBM, not from ATI. They should provide the support now, and shouldn't have made this kind of basic blunder in the first place."

IBM and ATI were unavailable for comment. The threadsd on are numerous.

Another user said: "Despite "Dual Head" being a much touted feature of the A20p, it is not supported under Win2K. This irritates me as the people most likely to want/need/afford dual head set ups are business users." ®